PATIENT CLASSIFICATION AND COST-ANALYSIS OF AIDS AND HIV - THE CASE OF BELGIUM

The study calculates inpatient costs generated at the University Hospi tal in Antwerp (Belgium) and outpatient costs generated at the Institu te of Tropical Medicine or at the University Hospital of 213 seroposit ive patients without AIDS and of 48 AIDS patients, for the year 1991. Outpatient drug use other than Zidovudine was excluded. An HIV + patie nt has an average annual total billing cost of 2062 ECU, 43% of which is spent in hospital, 29% on Zidovudine and 28% for follow-up at the I nstitute of Tropical Medicine. The average cost of care for an AIDS pa tient is 5.5 times higher and amounts to 11277 ECU-hospitalisation cos ts (8349 ECU) and costs of Zidovudine (2031 ECU) are much higher. Cost s vary with the severity of illness. In comparison to 1987, costs decr eased due to lower drug prices and reduced hospitalisations. Life time costs of a seropositive patient are estimated at about 35 000 ECU, ba sed on cost calculations per CD4-class for a follow-up period from 199 1 to 1993. Copyright (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Ireland Ltd.